Marianne Sawicki's Research
The dandelions poking through the sidewalk are what I study. In other words: defiance, creativity, and beauty flourishing under extreme conditions. I translated and edited the social and political treatises of the philosopher Edith Stein, who died at Auschwitz in 1942. Stein's theory of empathy is amazing. Using it, I've examined how persons handle rigid constraints such as race, kinship, and other social systems, both in the ancient world and in our world today. Sometimes what we take to be "the truth" can be the most rigid system of all. I enjoy helping students probe their own certainties about religion, science, gender, or their own identities. My philosophical interests include critical theories of natural and built environments; scientific logic; social critiques of religion, science and technology; philosophy of law; and of course the history of philosophy itself. My favorite historical areas are Greece from pre-Socratic times through the Hellenistic era, and Europe from the 16th through the 20th century. Currently I'm interested in the life and legacy of a 19th-century Haitian-American woman of color, Mother Mary Lange.
Some Recent Publications
- Body, Text, and Science: The Literacy of Investigative Practices and the Phenomenology of Edith Stein. Phaenomenologica volume 144. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. x + 312 pp.
- Crossing Galilee: Architectures of Contact in the Occupied Land of Jesus. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000.
- Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, by Edith Stein. Edited by Marianne Sawicki, with introduction and critical notes. Translated by Mary Catharine Baseheart and Marianne Sawicki. The Collected Works of Edith Stein, volume 7. Washington, DC : ICS Publications, 2000. [Beitraege zur philosophischen Begrundung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften. 1922.]
- An Investigation Concerning the State, by Edith Stein. Edited and translated by Marianne Sawicki, with introduction and critical notes. The Collected Works of Edith Stein, volume 10. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2006. [Eine Untersuchung ueber den Staat. 1925.]
- "Making Up Husserl's Mind About Constitution." Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society. Maynooth: The Irish Philosophical Society. Forthcoming in 2007.
- "Who Wouldn't Marry Jesus?" Essay for the Sean Freyne Festschrift, to be published by Brill, 2007.
- "Categorical Imperatives for Fugitive Slaves: Some Topographical Axioms of Deontology." Lived Topographies and their Mediational Forces, 183-201. Edited by Gary Backhaus and John Murungi. Rowman & Littlefield / Lexington Books, 2005.
- "Person or Practice: Judging in James and in Paul." The Missions of James, Peter, and Paul: Tensions in Early Christianity, 385-408. Novum Testamentum Supplements, vol. 115. Edited by Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
- "No Graven Thing: Renouncing Idolatry in Religious Education." Hermeneutics and Religious Education, 269-88. Biblioteca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium. Edited by H. Lombaerts and D. Pollefeyt. Louvain: Peeters, 2004.
- "Edith Stein's Critique of David Hume's Association Theory." Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, 138-147. "Personal Connections: The Phenomenology of Edith Stein." Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, 148-169. Maynooth: The Irish Philosophical Society, 2004.
- "The Humane Community: Husserl Versus Stein." Husserl and Stein, 141-54. Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series I. Culture and Values, vol. 1. Edited by Richard Feist and William Sweet. Washington: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2003.
- "Yes." Philosophy, Feminism, and Faith, 105-119. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion. Edited by Marya Brower and Ruth Groenhout. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
- "Catechesis and Resurrection." Die Wirklichkeit der Auferstehung: Biblische Zeugnisse und heutiges Erkennen, 77-91. Edited by Hans Joachim Eckstein and Michael Welker. Neukirchen Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002.
- "Edith Stein's Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities: The Jahrbuch Treatises of 1922." The Philosophy of Edith Stein, 69-95. Eighteenth Annual Symposium Volume of the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University, 2001.
- "Making Jesus." A Feminist Companion to Mark. Edited by A.J. Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
- "Salt and Leaven: Resistances to Empire in the Street-Smart Paleochurch." The Church as Counterculture, 59-87. SUNY Series in Popular Culture and Political Change. Edited by Michael L. Budde and Robert W. Brimlow. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.
- "Going to Church: A Parish Geography." Changing Churches: The Local Church and the Structures of Change, 111-137. Edited by Michael Warren. Portland, OR: Pastoral Press, 2000.